Event on 11/17/04 in San Diego.
Donna Frye is a write-in candidate is the too-close-to-call race to become mayor of San Diego against incumbent mayor Dick Murphy.
Chris Stewart / The Chronicle

Photo: Chris Stewart

Event on 11/17/04 in San Diego.
Donna Frye is a write-in candidate...

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Event on 11/17/04 in San Diego.
San Diego city councilwoman Donna Frye wipes a lipstick smear off the face of a supporter at a San Diego fund-raiser. Her write-in candidacy in the too-close-to-call race to become mayor against incumbent mayor Dick Murphy is mired in controversy. A discrepancy exists between the city charter, which appears to ban write-in candidates in the mayoral general election, and the municipal code, which allows them.
Chris Stewart / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT Metro#Metro#Chronicle#11/20/2004#ALL#5star#a12#0422474458

Photo: Chris Stewart

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Event on 11/17/04 in San Diego.
San Diego city...

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Event on 11/18/04 in San Diego.
The San Diego County Registrar of Voters office is currently hand counting several too-close-to-call races, including Donna Frye's efforts as a write-in candidacy to become mayor of San Diego against incumbent mayor Dick Murphy. Write-in team members Hazel Hazel (cq) (left, back row) and Kathy Fillion (cq) (right back row) join in the hand counting of votes. In front row are Joyce Law (left) and Rose McNulty.
Chris Stewart / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT Metro#Metro#Chronicle#11/20/2004#ALL#5star#a12#0422474463

Photo: Chris Stewart

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Event on 11/18/04 in San Diego.
The San Diego...

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Event on 11/17/04 in San Diego.
Incumbent San Diego city mayor Dick Murphy is in a too-close-to-call race for reelection against city councilwoman Donna Frye. Frye has conducted a write-in campaign and the contest has become mired in controversy. A discrepancy exists between the city charter, which appears to ban write-in candidates in the mayoral general election, and the municipal code, which allows them.
Chris Stewart / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT Metro#Metro#Chronicle#11/20/2004#ALL#5star#a12#0422474438

2004-11-20 04:00:00 PDT San Diego -- A devilish smile appeared on the face of San Diego's would-be surfer mayor, Donna Frye, as she stepped out of the City Hall elevator into a sea of flashing cameras and jockeying reporters.

It was, for the blond 52-year-old surf shop owner, just another day of a killer ride on one of the biggest political waves ever to roll over this beachfront city.

In the nearly three weeks since election day, Frye has run in a virtual dead heat with the incumbent and her polar opposite, Dick Murphy, for the mayor's job. The race followed a write-in campaign that mobilized the mostly liberal surfing community in this city and turned the political establishment on its collective head.

A final count Friday showed Murphy eking out a victory, but that's far from the end of it. Lawsuits about uncounted votes, unshaded bubbles and conflicting write-in regulations are in the works.

Frye, until recent days a popular yet largely anonymous city councilwoman, has become a national celebrity, accosted at every turn by media sharks from places like Fox News, CNN and USA Today.

All of which has left this darling of the surf world, in her own word, "stoked."

"This is so cool," she said. "I'm having a ball."

Frye met the media hordes with a good helping of her characteristic good cheer when she got off the elevator at City Hall that day. She broke out laughing.

"You ever see the movie 'The Candidate?' " she asked the assembled crowd, referring to the 1972 story of an idealist's California campaign for the U.S. Senate. "In it, Robert Redford is trying to make sense and he can't, and he just keeps laughing. That's how I feel."

The hysterics began five weeks before the election when Frye succumbed to pressure from supporters to enter the race. In San Diego, mayoral elections are technically nonpartisan, which means the top two vote-getters in the primary go to a runoff, regardless of party affiliation, if nobody wins more than half the vote.

In this case, to the chagrin of Democrats, the top two vote-getters in the primary were the incumbent, Murphy, and county Supervisor Ron Roberts, both Republicans. The wrinkle is that San Diego's municipal code allows write- in candidates in both the primary and general election.

Which is where Frye came splashing in.

Frye, whose husband, Skip Frye, is a celebrated surfer and expert surfboard shaper, moved to San Diego from Pennsylvania in 1957. She ran the family surf shop in Pacific Beach for many years, riding a few waves herself.

A lifelong women's advocate and agitator for liberal causes, she said she first got involved in local politics in an effort to stop polluters from fouling the ocean and making surfers sick.

Soon, Frye was the darling of the disenfranchised in what has historically been a clean-cut, conservative city, whose citizens are protective of the local Navy base and so proud of their beloved metropolis that they labeled it "America's Finest City."

She won a seat on the City Council in a 2001 special election after a scandal forced the incumbent to resign. She was re-elected in 2002.

Scandal has, in fact, become a kind of theme of late in San Diego, which may be what gave Frye her opening.

Three City Council members were indicted last year on charges of taking bribes from a strip-club owner who wanted to ease restrictions on touching dancers. This year, the city's credit rating suffered after a $1.7 billion deficit in the public employees' pension and retiree health care funds came to light. The FBI, the U.S. attorney's office and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating allegations that city officials were hiding the bad news. It has gotten so bad that people have begun calling San Diego "Enron by the Sea."

Frye complained that Murphy was responsible for this "culture of secrecy, " but nobody ever thought she had a chance against the 61-year-old mayor or, for that matter, the 62-year-old Roberts, both darlings of the right. A sitting mayor of San Diego has not been voted out of office in 33 years.

The two men, in fact, seemed pretty amused when Frye entered the race as a write-in candidate preaching surfing values -- honesty, friendliness and inclusiveness -- and the "aloha spirit." They weren't alone. Everyone from radio talk show hosts to college professors were chuckling about the surfer "riding a wave of populist support," as one newspaper put it.

Then the little breaker became a tsunami. The initial vote count revealed more write-in votes, 34.51 percent, than votes for either Murphy, with 34.48 percent, or Roberts, with 31 percent. Roberts soon conceded, and then began the long, tedious process of counting and verifying the write-in votes.

"Donna embodies everything we love about the surfing culture -- honesty, respect for each other and the environment," said Ryan Levinson, a 32-year- old surfer and champion cyclist. "She recognizes the positive aspects of that culture and brings them to the mainstream. For her, it's standing up for what is right and sticking with it no matter how unpopular it is. That's a breath of fresh air."

What keeps everyone going, supporters say, is Frye's self-described "cockeyed optimism" and sense of humor against all odds.

The odds, by the end of the week, were getting a bit longer. The county's final, uncertified count released Friday night showed Murphy with 157,459 votes to 155,254 verified write-ins for Frye.

San Diego, however, has its own version of the hanging chad. Sally McPherson, the registrar, said a number of people apparently wrote Frye's name on the space provided but failed to fill in the bubble next to her name. She said state law prohibits those votes from being counted.

The League of Women Voters filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Superior Court demanding that all write-in votes be counted, regardless of whether the bubble was shaded. Frye came out squarely behind the effort Friday, saying the city code "explicitly states that every person who writes in a name should have his or her vote counted, period. There is no requirement for a bubble or other marking to be used."

The case is expected to go to court Monday.

The league's lawsuit followed suits filed in state and federal courts challenging Frye's right even to run as a write-in candidate. Both those suits, filed by supporters of Murphy and Roberts, argue that San Diego's city charter limits general elections to the top two vote-getters in the primary, prohibiting write-ins. The contention is that the charter trumps the municipal code, which allows write-ins.

"This is very unique," said McPherson, shaking her head as she bounced from one media interview after another. "This is a write-in candidate who has brought in over a third of the vote. We have other close contests, but the only election since I've been here that I can compare to this is the governor's recall, but not even that is equivalent. This is certainly unprecedented here in San Diego County."

All of which has put a damper on the aloha spirit of Murphy's supporters, who successfully championed a strong-mayor initiative Nov. 2 that transfers budgeting and personnel authority away from the city manager. If Frye wins, Murphy would be forced to hand over his newly won power to the single biggest opponent of the so-called "strong mayor" form of government.

"It's part of the rough-and-tumble of politics," said Murphy, a former Army officer, Superior Court judge and active church member who was elected mayor in 2000.

Murphy said he is confident he will win but can hardly wait until the whole thing is over.

"We need the registrar of voters to tell us who the victor is instead of relying on rumors and speculation," he said. "We need to stop all these lawsuits so we can get back to running the city. I would prefer to devote the bulk of my time doing the work of local government, building parks, libraries, reducing crime and improving fire protection."

As the counting continued, more than 100 of Frye's supporters packed into a home in Point Loma for a fund-raiser to pay for the lawsuits. Frye got up to address the crowd.

"We have actually changed history in the city of San Diego, no matter the outcome," Frye said. "The conventional wisdom says that you can't do what we did, but people didn't believe it. Over 150,000 people didn't believe the conventional wisdom. They kept the hope."